The Godot of the software world Duke Nukem is about to be released and Game Stop has said that it will give priority to those who ordered it first. Since the first pre-orders were about 10 years ago, that is a mighty big promise and it would require an incredibly anal attitude to keeping receipts.

According to Gamepro, GameStop gave one of the must understated comments in PR history when it described Duke Nukem Forever as “long-anticipated”. However, it said that it was encouraging punters who pre-ordered more than a year ago to verify their reservation with their local store prior to launch.

If you had a receipt, Gamestop will honour even those pre-orders taken long ago. At this time, we expect that all pre-order customers will receive Duke's Big Package at time of purchase, regardless of when the reservation was made.

So, thousands of Duke Nukem pre-orderers are frantically digging down the back of the sofa or in the mattress round at their mum's house looking for their old receipts. No doubt others will be scouring for their receipt numbers on the Great Pyramid of Egypt.